Joseph Stalin was a voracious reader. Mostly he read government documents and the revolutionary classics but he also read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Balzac. By the time he died his library contained some 20,000 volumes. The books in Stalin’s personal library provide vital clues to what motivated his thoughts and actions. Geoffrey Roberts discusses the intellectual range behind the legendary monster.

Geoffrey Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Royal Irish Academy and Professor of History and International Relations at University College Cork.

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